It was founded in 1894 as a coaching station on a track leading east to Hastings and was known as Otaihape, a Maori word meaning the “abode of Tai the hunchback.” It quickly developed as the centre of a lumber industry.

Situated along a major highway and railway to Wellington (148 miles [238 km] southwest), Taihape now serves a dairy- and sheep-farming area. It has engineering works, iron and brass foundries, and furniture and concrete-products factories. Pop. (2006) 1,788.

Learn More in these related articles:

island country in the South Pacific Ocean, the southwesternmost part of Polynesia. New Zealand is a remote land—one of the last sizable territories suitable for habitation to be populated and settled—and lies more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Australia, its nearest...

river in southwestern North Island, New Zealand. Rising on the east slopes of the Kaimanawa Mountains, it flows south and southwest for 150 miles (240 km) to enter South Taranaki Bight of the Tasman Sea, 60 miles (97 km) south of Wanganui. The river—with its principal tributaries, the...